Notebooks belonging to a nurse working during the First World War have been discovered, containing a collection of stories, letters and drawings from the soldiers she cared for.

The two notebooks and three diaries belonged to Nurse Mabel Earp, who worked as a volunteer nurse at Oaklands military hospital and Frodsham Auxiliary Hospital’ in Cheshire during the First World War.

The drawings and jottings within them offer a fascinating insight into life on the home front and also show the soldiers' touching gratitude for the nurses who tended them after they were plucked from the horror of the trenches.

A sketch from notebooks belonging to Nurse Mabel Earp, who tended wounded soldiers in the First World War

'I knew not that a world like this in 60 years could hold such bliss': A soldier's poem on the joys of leave

Nurse Mabel married George Bertram Leach, who was wounded and discharged from the Army, in 1918

Nurse Mabel, who lived in nearby Runcorn, was in her early 30s when she volunteered to work as a nurse at the two hospitals near her home.

A trained artist, she took her sketch books to work and often painted or drew scenes described to her by the soliders, or rural scenes to cheer her patients up.

Often her patients would write notes or poems in her notebooks, and while some of them paid tribute to her nursing skills, others described what they had seen.

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One note, apparently written by Lance Corporal William Beech of 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers described how he was injured at Ypres on 7 October 1914.

He wrote: '[I] was wounded in a bayonet charge and had to have his right leg off...'

The soldier went on to advise other men not to get married but to go to war and 'go for the Germans and get your own back'.

He ends by paying tribute to the nurses and 'their kindness'.

A curator at the Cheshire Military Museum studies the notebooks left by Nurse Mabel Earp, who died in 1947

Bayonet injury: This note by Lance Corporal William Beech describes how he lost his leg after a bayonet charge

'Look out boys here comes the gas, get your respirators on': This soldier wrote of the horrors of the war

This sketch is believed to be of Nurse Mabel and was drawn for her by one of her patients in April 1917

One note by Private B Cooksey of 1st Duke of Cornwall's regiment, described his experiences in the trenches.

He wrote: 'The worst trenches I were [sic] in were at a place called Le Bassee where I got my feet frost-bitten.'

Another patient, Private H Thacker, of the 1st King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment wrote an impassioned poem in Nurse Mabel's book.

One verse read: 'Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe!

'Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die!'

Love poetry to the nurse who cared for him: This moving verse was written by a solider in March 1916

Beauty: Nurse Mabel, who was a trained artist, painted in watercolours - this is one of her countryside scenes

Insight into the past: Mabel Earp's five notebooks offer a fascinating glimpse into life on the home front

Caroline Mannion from the Cheshire
Military Museum said: 'The notebooks came to us from another museum and
we have since been trying to get a better idea of who Mabel is.

'Her
notebooks contain a mix of things that she and the soldiers had done,
with little anecdotes and thank yous from the soldiers for caring for
them.

'They are very much
of their time, in that the soldiers don't often talk about the war or
what they have been through, but they are full of typically Edwardian
sentimental poetry that we might describe as slushy, talking in the
abstract and saying 'What a sweet nurse'.

'They were reserved about the war but very flowery in their poems'.

'It’s a fascinating group of artefacts and a different style of collecting information.'

A member of staff at Cheshire Military Museum shows a cartoon drawn by a wounded soldier for Nurse Mabel

This quartet of country scenes was painted by Nurse Mabel, a trained artist who volunteered to nurse

This note, written by Private B Cooksey of 1st Duke of Cornwall's regiment in December 1914 reads: 'The worst trenches I were in were at a place called Le Bassee where I got my feet frost-bitten'

These pages from one of Nurse Mabel's sketchbooks show paintings of bucolic scenes

The watercolour on the left is thought to be Nurse Mabel in her uniform, while on the right is a still-life

Mabel, who was born in Preston Brook,
Cheshire, in 1879, was an art student before she volunteered as a
nurse, accounting for the skilled paintings and drawings within the
notebooks.

Records show
Mabel married ex-soldier George Bertram Leach in February 1918, nine
months before Armistice Day, but it is not known whether he was a
soldier she cared for.

George was a civil engineer who had served with the Royal Engineers during the war until his medical discharge as a result of wounds in July 1917. Mabel died on Christmas Eve 1947 aged 68.

The notebooks and sketches will displayed by Cheshire Military Museum next April as part of the Cheshire’s Great War Stories, a project commemorating the centenary of the Great War.

'Dearest Mother, please get people to send hundreds of Woodbines': Letters sent home from the trenches go online

Personal letters and diaries written by soldiers in the trenches in the First World War are being digitised and made available online for the first time - a century after they were first penned.

Letters from British soldiers to their loved ones are among the thousands of images that will be made accessible to the public to coincide with the centenary of the Great War.

The material, while will also include newspapers, photographs, burial records and diaries, contains moving letters including one in which a young soldier thanks his mother for a cake before describing how his friend was crushed and burnt alive when a trench collapsed.

'Dearest Mother, Thank goodness at last some fags': A soldier asks his mother to 'send hundreds of Woodbines'

This photo of land girls sawing logs will go online in a new project about Herefordshire during the Great War

One of the letters from the front line reads: 'Dear mother, thank you very much for the lovely parcel. The cake is top hole, the best I’ve tasted since I’ve been out.

'An awful tragedy happened this morning. The men’s dugout collapsed and Capt Higginson was buried alive and crushed to death.'

One diary entry written on 12 January
1915 said: 'School reopened. Instead of a nature lesson the children
learn their dialogues.

'Several letters have been received from soldiers in the trenches.'

And in another letter a soldier thanks his 'dearest mother' for sending 'fags', adding: 'Please get people to send hundreds of Woodbines out for the men - they are craving for smoking.'

Home front: This black and white photograph shows female munitions workers in their filthy uniforms

'Letters have been received from soldiers in the trenches': This entry is from a school log book in 1915

This image of Rotherwas munitions workers is part of the vast collection being digitised from 100 years ago

The school diary described how how pupils were asked to collect sheep's wool to make blankets for soldiers on the front line.

Other documents being put online include newspaper small ads placed by people struggling to make ends meet back at home, with one advert offering rum and wine puncheons (casks), and another 'empty bacon boxes' for sale.

The photographs, clippings, letters and
other records will be put into Herefordshire In The Great War - a new
online database about the county and its people during the Great War by
Herefordshire Council part-funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Pocket-sized book of photos and memories made by a young woman pining for her soldier lover

A home-made book containing stories, photographs, and heartfelt pleas to come home that was taken into the trenches by a soldier from Manchester has been revealed for the first time in nearly a century.

The pocket-sized keepsake was made for Osborne Wrigley by his then girlfriend Dora Pimley while he was serving in the First World War.

Mr Wrigley, who joined the Royal Fusiliers in September 1914 and was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in 1917, took the book with him into the frontline and it survived the 1914-18 conflict. The couple went on to marry.

'Osborne Dearest': The front page of the book Dora Pimley made for her soldier lover Osborne Wrigley

The book, which comforted the young soldier from Manchester, was made by his girlfriend, pining at home

Miss Pimley went on to marry her handsome soldier after the war, and the happy couple settled in Stockport

It is now owned by Sally Wrigley, from Bollington near Macclesfield, who married the couple's late son, Ross.

Mrs Wrigley, 91, said: 'I wanted to share the book because it is an amazing artefact that survived the trenches.

'Osborne would never discuss what he experienced during the war, especially his time in the trenches - it was so awful he didn’t want to remember. But the book must have meant a lot to him because he kept it safe and brought it back.

'It was created to keep Osborne’s spirits up while he was there in that horrible situation.'

The Wrigleys wed after the war and lived in Stockport til they died within two years of each other in the 1970s

The Wrigleys lived until the 1970s but their daughter-in-law Sally Wrigley, 91, now has Mr Wrigley's keepsakes

The book, dated 3 August 1916, makes romantic reference to Dora being the princess and Osborne a prince. There is a page for every member of his family, a picture of his family’s home in Moss Side, and a mention of the family dog.

In a heartfelt plea Miss Pimley wrote: 'Have you dear Osborne received the message of this little book? I think you have, for always you have heard my call.

'As you look at the old familiar faces, may these do you real good and make your life a little brighter, a little happier knowing that all think of you each day and wish you well.'

The couple were reunited and married soon after the war, and lived happily in Stockport. They died within two years of each other in the late 1970s, while they were living with their son Ross in Poynton.

The book was discovered with Mr Wrigley’s war medals and uniform badges, among Mrs Wrigley’s possessions after she died.

The couple's daughter-in-law said: 'They were very devoted to each other throughout their entire lives.

'It’s a lovely heirloom for the family to keep as a reminder of where this family started from.'